We were speaking of vacation memories. I told you my father would take us to visit my uncle’s family in Mobile, near the Gulf of Mexico. One year, I think I was seven years old, (My Aunt Bonnie may have had a hand in this plan!) my father and my uncle decided to pitch in and actually rent a cottage at Gulf Shores for a week.

“Cottage” is a generous term. It was a small, cinderblock structure with a tiny screen porch. I don’t remember much about the floor plan, but I think I slept on a cot in the kitchen. I can’t tell you where the four adults and other three children slept. The sandy grounds sloped down to a lagoon. Across the water was another strip of sand and beyond that the open gulf. There was not much around us back then, and the spit was just an empty bar of sand on the other side of the water. Today, it is chock-a-block with high-rise condominiums. However, I am delighted and amazed to report that, as of a few years ago anyway, the little cinderblock cabins still exist. I doubt if anyone in those beachfront condos has as much fun as we did that week.